May 2013

I thought this was a funny text message exchange that occurred when Tony sent me an "I love you"

On May 3rd, Faith was gone on a play date and Christian busied himself with my makeup, Faith's clothes, and a leftover plastic Easter egg opened into halves. 

A little too much "RuPaul's Drag Race" being watched at our house, perhaps?

One of Tony's work customers gave him a few sets of these plastic toy crossbows.

They're pretty powerful and the kids love them!

On the fourth we went to the kids soccer games,

and after working on the garden all day and finally getting it planted, we went to Ironman 3 with Tammy.

The next week the kids got their baseball and softball jerseys. Tony loves that they both got number seven, the same as Ben Rothlisberger!

Here is faith playing on the seventh,

  and pitching on the ninth! It was her first time, but managed to get in a couple of good throws.

On the 10th, Buddy set up a sort of Rube Goldberg machine out of everyday items on the kitchen table.

The cutest part is that he took lots of pictures and a video explaining what all the parts do.

On the 11th the kids and I went to baby animal days at the Biotanical center in Kaysville.

Skittles liked seeing the babies, too.

I don't think this snake was a baby, though!

It was a fun time :)

For some reason i snapped this pic in church on the 12th.

I love Christian's notes! I was working and Buddy was getting ready to leave for school. A few weeks before, he had thrown a toy sticky eyeball up at the ceiling and it stuck up there and for some reason it was imperative to him to retrieve it. So this note reads:

"Mom, don't forget to get the eyeball down from the ceiling." What a funny note.

More baseball and softball on the 14th. All the practices and two games, per kid, per week sure keeps us busy!

Christian's new obsession--the ball park concession stand. 

He had just finished bawling because he don't have enough money to buy all he wanted. At least he got some nachos!

We loved this beautiful rainbow on the 15th.

Buddy, still loving Ironman, drew this in the car on the 23rd.

Mom and dad got back from their two week cruise to the British isles & France on May 25th, so on the 26th Sarah and I brought dinner to their house, for a change. I made lettuce wraps and Sarah made Chinese chicken salad. Because it was Memorial Day weekend, Faith and I wanted to make some special treats.

The top level has brightly colored red, white & blue sandwich cookies made with cake mix and jello with some miniature reproductions of World War II propaganda posters in them. The lower level is star-shaped sugar cookies with cream cheese frosting, strawberries and blueberries like little fruit pizzas!

On the 27th, Tony had off from work so we started out at Lagoon-a Beach where the kids floated the lazy river on tubes and did a few water slides.

Then we hiked up to Timpanogos cave, starting with a quick visit to the gift shop.

It was a beautiful day with perfect weather. The trail is longer and steeper than I remember!

About 500 feet from the top, Tony freaked out and had a panic attack because there were no more trees on the side of the trail and you could see all the way down the side of the mountain. He couldn't go any farther and stayed behind while the kids and I crested the mountain and toured the cave, but they were super sad their dad missed out.

It was awesome!!

On the 29th we saw the first egg this year in our sattelite dish nest. there were two by the 30th! We figured out that they're Western Kingbirds.

That evening was the fifth grade program. I left buddy with Tam at his baseball game to get there forty minutes early, but still got crappy seats at the back. We could just barely see Faith when she was singing on the steps, but her dance numbers were on the floor in front instead of on the stage (???!!!!) so all we could see was the top of her head bobbing up and down :(

Christian was super sad he couldn't see her and bawled and threw a fit the whole time till we all wanted to kill him. Not a great night.

March 2013

On March 1st Christian got to celebrate Dr. Suess' birthday with a party at kindergarten! There were a bunch of cute activities and they made these fun cat-in-the-hat hats.

On the 3rd we celebrated Skittles' first birthday. Our baby isn't such a tiny baby anymore! Christian made her this darling party hat and Faith sewed a red felt toy that looked like a Skittles candy.

I love the cake that they decorated! I made it using Pioneer Woman's chocolate sheet cake recipe, but with some Postum powder to give it a mocha flavor. It came out sticky, but yummy. We did a chocolate ganache on top and then just frosting for decoration (which Faith did herself). I loved how they used the white "S" on the candy for the two s's in her name :)

On March 9th we finally got to do something that I had been meaning to for the last eight years--go to Disney on Ice!!

They acted out some of The Princess and the Frog, Cinderella, and Tangled. There was some great skating, but what really impressed us was the arial work on silks and pyrotechnics. Tony wasn't all that impressed with the first act (since he doesn't love ice skating like I do), but really liked the second half. The kids and I were mesmerized the entire time!

After the show, we stopped by Tim's house (Tony's friend from work). Buddy especially loved their dog.

On the 10th we celbrated Grandma Quinn's 90th birthday at the Gardens (her assisted living center). Even Skittles joined in the fun!

Since St. Patrick's Day is on Sunday this year and I knew we'd be eating at mom & dad's I decided to have our St. Patty's dinner on March 12th, instead. I made a new side dish this year: roasted vegetables. There are potatoes for Ireland, green kale for color, and sliced carrots to look like gold coins. It was very delicious and we have done "kale chips" several times since then because the kids love them so much.

Of course, we also had corned beef and cabbage,

and I made these "Blarney Stone" cookies for dessert. They are made with pistachio pudding mix, coconut and butterscotch chips. I really should learn better than to make desserts that I will want to eat!

We had a beautiful evening on the 13th, so we took a walk down to the park just west of us and then back through the horse trail.

The 14th was Pi Day and you know that, being a proud nerd, I had to celebrate! With pie!! We got creative this year and had quiche for dinner. It had bacon, onion, mushrooms, spinach and cheese. I was surprised it was such a big hit with the kids.

I was going to finally try a new kind of pie this year, but I was outvoted and it was cheesecake, again.

Christian asked me why it was called "cheesecake" when it didn't have cheese in it and it wasn't a cake. I explained it to him, but he still insists on calling it cheese pie. He's such a fan that he ate it the next day for breakfast and lunch! (And I kind of let him--I'm obviously vying for mother of the year again)

On the 15th the kids got all gussied up in their St. Patrick's Day best, since it was the last school day before the holiday. Tony got Faith those stockings and I think she's so darling in them :)

That afternoon Christian wrote his Chinese numbers in pink chalk all over the driveway. It's hard to see in this picture, but it looked awesome.

On the 16th we ate breakfast at Golden Corral. Man, can those kids put away a lot of bacon!

That afternoon we flew Arkite at Angel Street park,

And tried on groovy hats at ShopKo.

Just before bed the kids set up an elaborate leprechaun trap.

It included this tempting castle,

all set up with delicious food & drink. 

They didn't catch one this year. the trap was sprung, but only a stuffed animal was found caught. Foiled again! He even played a trick on us--he upturned all of our chairs and hung candy canes on them.

On March 17th my mom had a St. Patty's hunt where the kids found chocolate coins and shamrocks with money taped to them. Lucky!!

Tony has been on a pickled egg kick and has been making tons of the things. He had boiled a lot of eggs the day before and hadn't pickled them yet, so I let Christian color them first!

On the 23rd we went to Fresh Market's candy hunt. I don't think it was advertised very well and was over a week before Easter so there weren't very many people there. The kids each filled their baskets to the brim and then needed an extra bag to take home even more loot!

After that we went to Centerville to their Easter activity. We got the kids some funny ears and they had their faces painted.

They played on the playground for a few minutes and did this cute Bunny hop race.

It was pretty cold so we decided to leave before the Easter egg hunt.

That afternoon was the Braegger family Easter hunt. Tyler brought along his black lab puppy.

Liam had fun looking for his eggs!

The kids got lots of treats and darling outfits.

That evening we stopped by the pet store and Christian got to pet this lizard.

Buddy have been begging me to eat lunch at school with him, so I did just that on the 28th.

On the 29th we delivered our bag of filled Easter eggs for the neighborhood Easter hunt. Faith took skittles and rode her Ripstick.

The next morning we got to go to the park west of our house, see the Easter Bunny  and hunt for candy filled eggs.

After that we went to Laguna on opening day and got our season pass pictures taken.

We missed you Lagoon!!

We even rode the samurai for the first time.

When we got home we colors are Easter eggs.

Easter morning the kids woke up early and luckily I had traded away my earliest hours from work. There were lots of goodies in the Easter baskets and all the eggs were hidden along with some jelly beans.

So cute for church.

For an after church snack the kids wanted some deviled eggs. Christian is stuck on doing green eggs like we did for Dr. Seuss day, so we had them again.

Mom made her eggs look like cute Easter baskets!

We always joke that my dad manages to take pictures of us when we look weird, but this photo takes the cake. Eric has no idea what he was doing when this picture was taken but he looks like he came in on the short bus!! Hehe, he's my "special" brother!!!

The kids loved their Easter hunt.

And Joy is getting nice and round.

Celeste got a new pet bunny and brought it for everyone to love on. It was a great Easter!